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Nearly two decades after he terrorized California, the Golden State Killer has finally pleaded guilty to his crimes. No matter how hard he tried, one woman refused to let this former policeman disappear into oblivion...
Ruthless Criminal
His crimes stretched across the entirety of California. During the 1970s and 1980s, he wasn't just the Golden State Killer—papers dubbed him the Visalia ransacker, the Diamond Knot Killer, the Original Night Stalker, the East Area Rapist. It wasn't until later that officials realized only one man was responsible.
She Took Him Down
Thanks to a team of dedicated sleuths and one unbelievable idea, the Golden State Killer sat in an empty interrogation room and said, "I did it all." Unfortunately, his final victim was the woman who helped bring him to justice—and he never even laid a hand on her...
Catching A Killer
The daughter of a trial lawyer, Michelle McNamara launched the website TrueCrimeDiary in 2006. McNamara had always been fascinated with true crime after the still-unsolved murder of Kathleen Lombardo, a 24-year-old who was brutally murdered only two blocks from her childhood home.
Origin Story
In a 2012 blog post titled "Origin Story," McNamara describes the day she visited the Lombardo crime scene. McNamara was 14, living just west of Chicago; she picked up a piece of Lombardo's broken yellow Walkman and thought, "Never again would I tune out when the words 'homicide' or 'missing' or 'mystery' came on the news."
Golden State Killer
It wasn't long before McNamara's interest in true crime became an obsession. She was particularly drawn to the crimes of one person, then known as the East Area Rapist. McNamara soon evolved from a true-crime blogger to an amateur criminal investigator and author. In fact, she was responsible for coining the official moniker, "Golden State Killer."
Amateur Sleuth
McNamara married actor and comedian Patton Oswalt and give birth to a daughter a few years after she first launched True Crime Diary. She was determined to become a "citizen detective." In 2010, McNamara read Sudden Terror by retired detective Larry Crompton who originally investigated his crimes. Intrigued, she began to look into the East Area Rapist herself...
The Cufflinks
McNamara began visiting crime scenes, talking with witnesses, and speaking to police officers assigned to the East Area Rapist case. Eventually, McNamara gained the trust and respect of detectives after managing to unearth a pair of cuff links on eBay that matched the description of cufflinks the Golden State Killer had stolen from a victim. Then, in 2013, one event would lead her down a rabbit hole...
Unhealthy Obsession
In 2013, McNamara had a story featured in Los Angeles magazine wherein she decided that the East Area Rapist should be known as the Golden State Killer. She shared never-before-seen evidence about DeAngelo, skyrocketing her into the public eye. McNamara's article turned into a book deal. Suddenly, one woman's obsession had consumed her entire life.
Downward Spiral
McNamara enlisted the help of citizen investigator Paul Haynes, which offered her access to hundreds of files on the case. Professional detectives like Crompton, Larry Pool, and Paul Holes kept in regular correspondence with McNamara to discuss theories and potential leads. Sadly, at a certain point, it all became too much for McNamara, who found herself struggling to keep her head above water...
It Was All Too Much
McNamara was crumbling beneath the pressure of book deadlines while confronting the nightmarish crimes of the Golden State Killer daily. She began to self-medicate with Adderall for focus and Xanax for sleep. Eventually, McNamara turned to opioids. No one had a clue. On April 21, 2016, McNamara died of an accidental overdose. Fortunately, her story didn't end there.
Searching for Answers
Grieving and miserable, Oswalt threw himself into the monumental task of finishing what his late wife started. He had no idea that deep within McNamara's book, she had buried the lede. Her simple suggestion would drive the investigation that led detectives to identify the Golden State Killer.
One Important Detail
Oswalt paired up with Haynes, McNamara's former research partner, and Billy Jensen, an author and amateur sleuth. They immersed themselves in McNamara's detailed outlines and notes. Soon, one of his late wife's ideas would serve as a critical turning point in the search for the Golden State Killer.
I'll Be Gone in the Dark
Oswalt, Jensen, and Haynes spent the years after her death writing and investigating, piecing together the work that would become McNamara's legacy. I'll Be Gone in the Dark was published posthumously in February 2018. One section, however, stood out against the rest...
One Crazy Idea
McNamara posed the question: What if someone used a genetic database—such as 23andMe, which McNamara herself had tried out for fun—to catch the killer? She assumed that somebody related to the Golden State Killer had to have submitted their DNA for testing...
The Search Begins
Holes, one of McNamara's former associates and a professional detective for Contra Costa County, happened to have a background in biochemistry. With nothing left to lose, Holes uploaded DNA samples from the Golden State Killer to the public database GEDMatch. What Holes and his colleagues uncovered stunned them beyond words...
Looking for the Killer
Holes found several individuals with the same great-great-great-grandparents as the Golden State Killer. One after another, Holes and his team narrowed down the list, scouring every record they could get their hands on to compose a family tree.
A Perfect Match
A desperate search ensued. Their goal was to find a male relative who might fit the Golden State Killer's description, location, and timeline. Finally, they stumbled across one particular descendent in April 2018—two months after the publication of I'll be Gone in the Dark. His name was Joseph James DeAngelo.
Joseph James DeAngelo
Born in 1945, DeAngelo spent most of his childhood at an Air Force base in West Germany. There, he witnessed two servicemen sexually assault his young sister. DeAngelo's father abused him and his siblings, locking them in closets, forcing them to eat off the floor, and beating them senseless.
Meeting Bonnie
DeAngelo served in the Navy during the Vietnam War before enrolling in a California community college to study police science. There, he met Bonnie Colwell, to whom he proposed in 1970. She described him as sexually aggressive, often pushing her to do things that made her uncomfortable.
Tipping Point
Colwell broke off the engagement after DeAngelo asked her to help him cheat in his abnormal psychology class. A few nights later, she woke up to DeAngelo outside her bedroom window with a gun aimed at her face, demanding that she accompany him to elope in Reno. The incident is theorized to have been DeAngelo's breaking point.
The Visalia Ransacker
Within the years of their split, a sexual assault victim reported her attacker yelling, "I hate you, Bonnie!" Reports rose of a peeping tom and cat burglar, who would stare into windows pantsless, touch women as they slept, and kill family pets. Soon after, DeAngelo married someone else and became a police officer in Exeter—a town neighboring Visalia.
Skilled Robber
A string of burglaries occurred in Visalia with the same MO as the ones that had occurred where DeAngelo used to live. In 1975, he killed a college professor who caught him trying to kidnap his daughter. Less than two years later, DeAngelo committed approximately 120 break-ins. DeAngelo's crimes worsened...
East Area Rapist
1976 was the year DeAngelo became the East Area Rapist, named so by a local paper. DeAngelo began to target women home alone, and then couples. He would force the woman to bind her male companion and then stack plates on his back, claiming he'd kill them both if the plates fell over. DeAngelo would take keepsakes, photos, as well as food and beer from their fridges. Sometimes, he called his victims afterward, relentlessly taunting them over the phone.
Making A Murderer
DeAngelo escalated to serial killer status, going on a spree across Southern California. A footprint tied him to a murder in the Santa Barbara area, but DeAngelo escaped detection. He left a trail of murders and assaults in his wake...
Original Night Stalker
A brief gap in criminal activity occurred when DeAngelo was forced to care for his young cousin. Eventually, the murders resumed. Police believed it was the work of another killer, whom they initially dubbed the Original Night Stalker. DeAngelo's crimes were finally linked by DNA in 2001, years after he had gone totally inactive.
In the Footsteps of a Killer
DeAngelo became known as EAR/ONS, a clunky acronym that was later revamped by McNamara's moniker. She named him the Golden State Killer, a term that was first coined in her 2013 Los Angeles magazine article that started it all: "In the Footsteps of a Killer." Outside of a brief arrest for shoplifting, DeAngelo lived mostly in solitude...
Finally Caught
He was known as a strange old man who occasionally screamed profanities in his yard. Once, he threatened to kill a neighbor's dog for barking too loudly. Until his arrest on April 24, 2018, DeAngelo nearly got away with it all. While alone in the interrogation room, DeAngelo began to mumble to himself...
I Did All Those Things
"I did all that. I didn't have the strength to push him out," DeAngelo said, appearing to address an invisible presence in the room. "He made me. He went with me. It was like in my head, I mean, he's a part of me. I didn't want to do those things. I pushed Jerry out and had a happy life. I did all those things. I destroyed all their lives. So now I've got to pay the price."
Guilty
I'll Be Gone in the Dark, a six-part documentary adaptation of Michelle McNamara's book that helped to catch the Golden State Killer, premiered on HBO on June 28, 2020. One day later, 74-year-old DeAngelo pleaded guilty to all 13 murders, additionally admitting to all rapes and burglaries associated with the Golden State Killer. He could no longer be held legally accountable for certain crimes due to the statute of limitations.
An End to It All
On June 29, 2020, DeAngelo wore orange jail scrubs and a plastic face shield to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The hearing was live-streamed. "The scope of Joseph DeAngelo's crimes is simply staggering," said Sacramento County prosecutor Thien Ho. "Each time he escaped, slipping away silently into the night."
McNamara's Legacy
Thanks to Michelle McNamara's dedicated work, including that of her husband and fellow investigators, escape is no longer a possibility. DeAngelo was sentenced to 11 consecutive life sentences with no chance of parole. Although his victims may never recover from their trauma, DeAngelo won't have the opportunity to inflict violence or harm upon anyone else.